Al-Jazeera opts to not air France attack video

Updated at 11:19 a.m. ET

(AP) PARIS - Al-Jazeera said Tuesday it will not air a video that appears to show the attacks on soldiers and a Jewish school in southwestern France earlier this month from the killer's point of view, including the cries of his victims.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, other French officials and family members of the victims had asked that it not be broadcast.

The footage was contained on a USB key sent with a letter to the Paris office of the Qatar-based television company, Zied Tarrouche, the station's Paris bureau chief, said Tuesday on the French TV station BFM. The letter, written in poor French with spelling and grammar errors, claimed the shootings were carried out in the name of al Qaeda.

Police traced the attacks to Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman, who was killed last week after a more than 30-hour standoff with police at his apartment building. Merah had claimed to police that he had links to al Qaeda, traveled to Afghanistan, and received weapons training in the militant-riddled Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan. But authorities have questioned some of Merah's claims.

Prosecutors have said that Merah filmed all of his attacks, which began March 11 with the murder of a French soldier. Before the spree ended, two more soldiers and three Jewish children and a rabbi were killed.

"In accordance with Al Jazeera's Code of Ethics, given the video does not add any information that is not already in the public domain, its news channels will not be broadcasting any of its contents," the broadcaster said in a statement.

The channel said the video was received from an anonymous source on Monday and that Al-Jazeera immediately gave it to French police.

A French official close to the investigation said it was not sent by Merah. Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, he said that technical experts have concluded that the video was sent on Wednesday from near southern Toulouse, the same day that Merah was trapped in his apartment by the predawn police raid.

Al-Jazeera said it had received many requests by media to look at the video, but that it would deny all of them.

Tarrouche, the Paris bureau chief, said the images appear to have been taken from the point of view of the killer, perhaps from a camera hung around his neck. He said they were a bit shaky but of a high technical quality.

The video had clearly been manipulated after the fact, according to Tarrouche, with religious songs and recitations of Koranic verses laid over the footage.

"You can hear gunshots at the moment of the killings. You can hear the voice of this person who has committed these assassinations. You can hear also the cries of the victims, and the voices were distorted," Tarrouche said.

In an address to police officers and judges earlier Tuesday, Sarkozy had asked that the images not be broadcast.

"I ask the managers of all television stations that might have these images not to broadcast them in any circumstances, out of respect for the victims — out of respect for the Republic," Sarkozy said.

Tarrouche said the Paris prosecutor, whose office is leading the investigation, had also called to explain the consequences of disseminating the images. But Tarrouche said the prosecutor said he would not prohibit the channel from "doing its work as journalists."

"We are not a sensationalist channel. We're not looking to broadcast images without weighing the risks and the consequences. That's why the management will decide today after meeting at headquarters in Qatar," Tarrouche said.

The decision not to broadcast the images came a few hours later.

Tarrouche said investigators spent Monday interviewing employees at the Paris bureau about the video. It was not immediately clear when the footage was received or who had sent it.

Al-Jazeera was frequently used early in the Iraq and Afghan wars as a conduit for militants, including Osama bin Laden, to distribute taped statements. As the Iraq war progressed, many of these tapes included gruesome killings and beheadings of Western or foreign hostages, although the station edited out some of the grisliest scenes at the moment of death.

The broadcasts drew outrage, especially from the Bush administration. Over time, most militant groups opted instead for posting such videos on their own websites, where they were not subject to outside editing standards.

A lawyer for the families of the victims killed outside the Jewish school, Patrick Klugman, warned on Tuesday that there would be legal consequences for those who disseminate the footage.

"Clearly, we'll go after them wherever they are, whatever media," he said on BFM television.

Meanwhile, Merah's father, who was estranged from his son and lives in Algeria, has reportedly said he wants to file a complaint for Mohamed's death. In his address, Sarkozy expressed outrage at that idea.

"It's with indignation that I learned that the father of the assassin of seven people — including three soldiers and three children — wanted to file a lawsuit against France for the death of his son," Sarkozy said. "Do we need to remind this man that his son filmed his crimes and diabolically made sure to send these despicable images to a television station?"Sarkozy has said Merah was not part of a terror cell, but investigators are looking into whether his brother, Abdelkader, was an accomplice, and whether anyone else might have been involved.

Preliminary charges for complicity in murder and terrorism have been filed against Abdelkader, though no evidence has emerged that he took part directly in the shooting.

Sarkozy, who is the middle of a tough re-election campaign, has announced a raft of new measures aimed at preventing the spread and incubation of radical ideas, including penalizing those who regularly consult websites that promote jihad.

On Tuesday, he said wanted to speed up the process of expelling radicals from the country as well as prevent them from ever entering France.

"Extremists are playing with our administrative formalities. Our job is to be more efficient," he said. "Preachers who continually target our system can stay where they are. We don't want them on the soil of the French Republic."